{"product_id":"music-of-what-happens-paperback-by-helen-vendler","title":"Music of What Happens Paperback by Helen Vendler","description":"\u003cbody\u003e\n                \n                    \n                        \u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n                        \u003cul\u003e\n                            \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher\u003c\/strong\u003e: \u003cb\u003eHarvard University Press\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e(1989-01-03)\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n                            \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eLanguage\u003c\/strong\u003e: \u003cstrong\u003eEnglish\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n                            \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePaperback\u003c\/strong\u003e: \u003cstrong\u003e486\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cb\u003epages\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n                            \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN-13\u003c\/strong\u003e: \u003cstrong\u003e9780674591530\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n                            \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eItem Weight\u003c\/strong\u003e: \u003cstrong\u003e368.55\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cb\u003egrams\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n                            \u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions\u003c\/strong\u003e: \u003cstrong\u003e0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cb\u003ecm\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n                        \u003c\/ul\u003e\n                        \u003cbr\u003e\n                        \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Essential Vendler.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA leading partisan of close reading defends aesthetics as the beating heart of criticism.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed a sea change in literary criticism. As deconstruction, Marxism, feminism, and other currents dethroned the New Criticism in the American academy, those who held fast to formalist approaches appeared increasingly outmoded. Critics, as Helen Vendler put it, had been “put on notice” by literary theory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFortunately, Vendler was up to the challenge. The essays and reviews collected in \u003ci\u003eThe Music of What Happens\u003c\/i\u003e make a defiantly unfashionable case for her stalwart aestheticism. According to Vendler, the critic’s job is neither to interpret the poem, uncovering the secret meaning lurking beneath its surfaces, nor to unmask its ideological underpinnings, but to describe how the interplay of form and signification creates a unique and cohesive aesthetic experience. Good criticism illuminates the qualities that make each poem unlike any other: it explains not only what happens in the text but also, as Seamus Heaney once wrote, “the music of what happens.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIncluding magisterial assessments of her fellow critics and literary theorists, from Roland Barthes and Geoffrey Hartman to Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, as well as characteristically acute appraisals of a wide range of contemporary and canonical poets, \u003ci\u003eThe Music of What Happens\u003c\/i\u003e shows the rich dividends that accrue when we treat literature as a fine art like painting or sculpture rather than a discourse to be decoded and evaluated in social and historical terms. Above all, we become more attuned to the pleasures of reading—and even the pleasures of criticism itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n                        \u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n                        \u003cp\u003eHelen Vendler (1933–2024) was a leading poetry critic and the author of nineteen books on poets from William Shakespeare to Seamus Heaney. A winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, she contributed regularly to the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eNew Republic\u003c\/i\u003e. She was the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University.\u003c\/p\u003e\n                    \n                \n            \u003c\/body\u003e","brand":"Best Bookstore","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":46554328367265,"sku":"BBSNIJ9780674591530","price":62.1,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0525\/2084\/5473\/files\/9780674591530.jpg?v=1781763779","url":"https:\/\/www.bestbookstore.ca\/products\/music-of-what-happens-paperback-by-helen-vendler","provider":"Best Book Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}